Pray for More!

tumblr_m8ez4dMuCr1rwwz0zo1_400__1_
tumblr_m8ez4dMuCr1rwwz0zo1_400__1_

One of the most dire needs we have at the Haven of Rest is PRAYER!

  1. For our clients
  2. For our leaders and staff

Here is an excerpt on prayer from an article we loved by Desiring God.

Pray for More, Not Less

So it is with every good gift that people need. Christians do not pray for less, but for more — infinitely more.

  • Lord grant them shelter, both for the body and the soul — a shelter from the heat and cold and rain, and from the greater heat of your wrath, and from the cold of hate, and from the flood of destruction that comes upon all unbelief. Show them the glory of your sheltering grace.
  • Grant them food, Lord, and the saving knowledge that there is a “food that perishes” and a “food that endures to eternal life” (John 6:27). Oh feed them, dear God, on both. Grant them to taste and see that you are all-satisfying.
  • Lord, provide the clothing that they need. Let them not go in rags, but be attired with dignity. Show them, O Lord, that there are “garments of salvation” and a “robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10). Show them that these are free — bought with the costly blood of Jesus. O Lord, let them not be found clothed in the best finery of the world, but naked at the judgment. Grant them to love the shining of your all-encompassing presence.
  • Father, give them health. Grant that they would be made well. Rescue them from disease. Heal them. And forbid that they would be like the nine lepers who took their healing from Jesus and never turned to thank him or love him (Luke 17:17). Let their healing be full and eternal — to the glory of the healing God. Grant that it would go well with their physical health, and even more so with their souls (3 John 2).
  • Great God of peace, bring peace between the warring nations — tribes, ethnicities, families, children, gangs. Overcome the bitterness and rage and revenge and hostility. Reveal the Prince of Peace. Reveal the one who shed his blood so that in him the most implacable enemies might be reconciled to God and to each other (Ephesians 2:15–16). Open their hearts to Christ and make them peacemakers.
  • Lord, according to the infinite riches that you have as Creator and Redeemer, grant prosperity to those who lack what they require. Provide them with what is needful, lest they be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest they be poor and steal and profane the name of God (Proverbs 30:8–9). Grant that every soul would know, O God, that it is you who gives power to prosper (Deuteronomy 8:18). Let them see this, and give you glory.
  • You know, O Lord, the plight of the oppressed. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). Let liberty be proclaimed to the captives, and freedom to those who are unjustly bound. Bring to nothing wicked powers of tyranny. Break the arms of unjust rulers who fail in their God-appointed vocation “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (1 Peter 2:14). And grant to both the strong and the weak to see that justice is of the Lord, and in the end, every wrong will be set right. Oh turn the hearts of oppressor and oppressed to seek mercy from the Judge of the universe while there is time (Acts 17:31).
  • Lord, you are “Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3). We pray that you would show this comfort and mercy to those who have lost so much — the dearest earthly treasures of their lives. Leave them not, O God, hopeless in their grieving. Show them the greatness of what Christ came to do for those whose sorrows are overflowing (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18). May their sorrows be the wound that opens their hearts to the everlasting healing that you offer in Christ. Show them the surpassing worth of Jesus beyond all this world gives.
  • Finally, Father, grant happiness. We do not desire or pray for anyone’s lasting misery or sorrow or sadness. If the pain of surgery is needed for lasting healing, we trust you with that sting. But our heart is for the lasting joy of every living soul. We do not ask for what Moses repudiated as “the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25), or the “passions of the flesh that wage war against [the] soul” (1 Peter 2:11), or for the comfort of riches that turn the door of heaven into a needle’s eye (Matthew 19:24). But we ask, even for our enemies, fullness of joy at your right hand and pleasures forevermore in your presence (Psalm 16:11). Jesus died for this. May they see and receive.
Connections Coordinator